Magebane (18 page)

Falk had felt no regret or horror at learning that the only way for him to obtain the power to lower the Barriers required two deaths. For him, there had been only a feeling of exaltation; the thing could be done. It would be difficult, but
it could be done
.

How
difficult had become clearer as Tagaza had further studied the spell. The energy required was so enormous that the spell could only be performed on the very edge of the Cauldron, the vast open lake of lava that provided the energy for the Barriers. One of the two, either King or Heir, would have to be slain on its blackened shore.

Nor could it be done while the Heir was still a child, since the Keys would not transfer to an Heir who was not yet an adult, and intercepting the transfer of the Keys, in effect grabbing them away from the Heir at the very moment they attempted to leap from dying Ruler to future Ruler, was the whole point of the spell.

The logistics were almost as complicated as the spell itself. Killing the Ruler and Heir at once within the Lesser Barrier would have been a simple matter—especially when the one who wanted them dead was the Minister of Public Safety, whose duty was supposedly to protect them, and who commanded the Royal guard—but getting either to the Cauldron had seemed an insurmountable task, exacerbated by the simple fact that King Kravon, at the time Falk ascended to the King's Council, had not yet produced any heir at all.

And then Mother Northwind had come forward and offered her invaluable help.

Falk reached the edge of the trees and began walking along the much better marked road that led to his manor. Almost two decades had passed. Brenna and Karl had both turned eighteen six months ago. No one had ever expressed doubt that Karl was both the true son of King Kravon and the Heir to the Keys. Why should they? After all, the First Mage himself had Confirmed Karl as Heir.

But, in truth,
Brenna
was Heir to the Keys and Karl the orphaned Commoner.

He sighed, thinking of Brenna. He
was
rather fond of the girl, despite having done his best to keep his distance from her over the years. He'd been amused by her determination to sneak in and see the boy, impressed by her willingness to do so against his wishes, and impressed again by how quickly she had realized Mother Northwind must be the one he had come see, even though she had no inkling of Mother Northwind's true powers. He thought she would probably have made quite a good Queen—certainly a better Queen than her father Kravon had made a King—but, nevertheless, when the moment came, he would kill her without a qualm. It was a shame, but there was no help for it.

So she sacrifices her life for the greater glory of the Kingdom and to fulfill the will of the SkyMage,
he thought.
I have already sacrificed mine.
He had forgone marriage, children, the many pleasures prestige and power provided for other MageLords, focusing always on the Plan, which would culminate with him becoming King: the first King of Evrenfels with the ability to lower the Barriers at will.

It was all so close, now. He had a man in place ready to kill the King. He had long made it his practice in early spring to travel to the Lake of Fire with the First Mage on an “inspection trip”—no one would remark when he did so again. This time he would take Brenna; the ward he'd have recently brought to the Palace to live permanently, to “further her education.” No one would remark on that, either.

Once there, using a magelink with his operatives in the Palace, he would order the King murdered—and at the moment of that death, Falk, with Tagaza's help, drawing on the vast energy of the Cauldron, would strip the Keys—and her life—from Brenna, transferring the Keys to himself, and transforming those Keys to give him power over the Barriers.

With the army and Royal guard already loyal to him and his plans twenty-years matured, and now with the information he hoped to get from the boy from Outside about what awaited them on the other side of the Great Barrier, he would prepare for the moment when the Mageborn would
all
be Unbound, free from their self-imposed prison, and ready to take their place once again as rulers in the world Outside, as the SkyMage willed.

And he, at last, would erase the family shame—the failure of their dynasty, two generations before, when Kravon's grandmother had received the Keys instead of Falk's grandfather. He would be King, as he always should have been.

The vision was as clear and sharp and rainbow-hued in his mind as a crystal goblet lit by the sun, and had been for years, but the attempt on the Prince's life had cast a shadow across it.

He stopped on a footbridge that crossed a tiny creek, its summertime burbling stilled by months of deep winter cold, and gazed down at the ice-covered rocks. If the Prince were to die, leaving the current King apparently Heirless, there would be demands for Tagaza to conduct a magical search for the new Heir. The First Mage before Tagaza had developed the spell, and its existence was unfortunately well known to the King's Council and the rest of the Twelve. There would be no way to refuse. But such a search, if carried out fairly, would, without fail, point to Brenna, exposing all Falk's machinations.

If
it were carried out fairly. The search would of course be led by Tagaza, who would certainly not expose Falk's—

Falk's eyes narrowed.
Or would he?

Whoever had arranged the attack on the Prince, if it had indeed been intended to disrupt the Plan, had to be someone with intimate knowledge of that Plan.

Someone like Tagaza.

Tagaza, Falk well knew, did not share the Unbound's belief. He had always been open about his reasons for wanting the Barriers to fall, with his preposterous claim that they were eating up the Kingdom's magic. Falk was prepared to overlook that as long as Tagaza continued to work toward their shared goal, and so far, he had.

But Tagaza also had a soft spot in his heart for the Commoners. In fact, some of the things he'd said to Falk over the years about improving the lot of Commoners could have come straight from the Common Cause's manifesto. Falk had never believed Tagaza would actually act on those beliefs . . . but what if he had? What if
Tagaza
had arranged the assassination attempt, hoping to bring about the search that
he
would lead—and which he could then use to reveal Brenna as Heir, expose Falk, and halt the Plan?

It made some kind of sense, if Tagaza had finally realized that his theory of magic failing if the Barriers remained in place was the nonsense Falk had always believed it to be. If he no longer believed the Barriers had to come down, then he might very well want to prevent Falk from becoming King, knowing that King Falk would certainly never negotiate the reforms with the Commoners Tagaza supported.

He must know I would kill him for it
, Falk thought.
Whether I became King or not.

Falk turned around and looked out over the snow-covered fields to the few flickering lights of the nearest village. Smoke rose into the starlit sky in tall, unbroken streams from a hundred chimneys.

To craft the magic that could hide an assassin in a bubble of ice on the bottom of a lake, and another that could blast the Prince to oblivion, and enchant objects so that even a Commoner could use that magic . . . it was the work of a master mage.

Maybe even the First Mage.

Then why did the spell fail?
Falk thought, frowning—and thinking—furiously.
Because it was being used by a Commoner?

Or . . . had Tagaza always
meant
the assassination to fail? He was fond of Karl . . . too fond, Falk had often thought. By staging the attempt on Karl's life, and planting the Unbound symbol on the assassin, he might have been aiming to sabotage Falk's Plan, deflect suspicion from himself, and save Brenna's and the King's life, all at once.

Which would also mean he had sacrificed a Commoner, but Falk didn't believe even Tagaza would flinch at that when the stakes were so high. He might want them treated better, but he was still Mageborn, and they were just Commoners, their lack of magic bearing unimpeachable witness to their inferiority. Falk treated his own Commoners well, judging their disputes, ensuring the villages had clean water, access to Healers, farm equipment, etc. But he treated his animals well, too, and he still wouldn't hesitate to butcher one if he needed the meat.

Fury was starting to burn in Falk's chest like a tiny, redhot coal. He sucked in a lungful of freezing air, as if that would cool it, then let it out in an explosion of white steam. He and Tagaza had been friends and coconspirators, but lately the friendship had faded. And as for the latter . . .

Tagaza had crafted the spell that would transfer the Keys from Brenna at the moment of her and the King's deaths, and transform them to give power over the Barriers. Falk could hold it perfectly in his mind, but could not use it and receive the Keys at the same time. The plan had always been for Tagaza to perform the spell. But Falk had taken the precaution of teaching it to another mage, as well, someone who could step in if something happened to Tagaza.

Which meant Tagaza was no longer necessary to the Plan, and had not been for some time.

Falk turned and walked the last few feet to the gates of his manor.
A pity
, he thought.
But we must all live or die with the consequences of our choices. If Tagaza has betrayed me . . . then his choice is made.

Mother Northwind listened to the sound of Falk's footsteps crunching away through the snow, then, chuckling, hauled herself to her feet.

So easy to manipulate
, she thought.
So unable to see the truth
.

She shuffled into the kitchen, her knees stiff after sitting so long in her chair, and stoked the fire, then placed another log on the coals. A wheel of cloth-wrapped hard cheese lay on the lovingly polished table of golden oak, next to half a loaf of crusty bread. She took a knife from the counter and sliced two pieces of the bread, then hung them on a toasting fork, pulled the table's sole accompanying chair close to the fire, sat down with a grunt, and held the slices over the flames.

It was true enough, as Falk believed, that she and he shared a goal: both wanted the Barrier to fall. What Falk had never known, never guessed, she suspected, for he could not imagine a Mageborn would even think of it, was that she wanted the Barrier to fall, not for the greater glory of the MageLords, but to destroy them utterly.

Staring into the fire, she saw, as she always did, another fire from long ago: the flames of a burning Minik village, as men, women, and children she had come to help were slaughtered by a MageLord and his men, and she stood helpless on the hillside.

Lord Starkind had been one of the Twelve, but not of the King's Council. He had come north with his entourage on a hunting trip, but their prey had not been deer, moose, or bear.

He had come to hunt the Minik.

He had set up camp on the outskirts of Stony Creek, the Commoner village where Mother Northwind lived (though that had not been her name then). He had ordered the Commoners to act as forest guides for him and his drunken companions. The locals were on good terms with the Minik and did everything they could to prevent Starkind from finding them, but he soon caught on to what they were up to—and in retaliation executed the village mayor, splitting him in two from head to crotch with a blue-white blade of ice conjured from thin air. Terrified, the guides took him to the Minik village the next day.

When Starkind and his men, blood-spattered and smelling of smoke, grinning, drunk, and laughing, rode back into Stony Creek, the villagers begged him to let them flee south with him and his men. But Lord Starkind jeered at them and rode away, forbidding them to follow. They waited until he was out of sight, then began their own desperate journey south, abandoning everything but what they could carry, the men, women, and children struggling along the forest trails on foot.

By sunset that first day of their journey, none were left alive . . . except Mother Northwind, spared by the vengeful kin of the slaughtered Minik for the Healing help she had always provided them. Taken prisoner, she served the next ten years as Healer to the Black Bear Clan, and as his last action before he died, the old chief set her free. She had set out south at once.

Lord Starkind, grown too fat to ride to any kind of hunt in the ten years since the massacre, shortly thereafter went violently insane, servants rushing into his room when they heard him screaming in the middle of the night, watching in horror as he plucked out his own eyes, chewed, and swallowed them. He had eaten all the fingers off his left hand, his own cock, and was halfway through his second testicle when he finally expired.

Every one of the Mageborn who had accompanied him on his hunting trip north soon met similarly unpleasant fates.